Re: [ga] Five Questions with David Hernand, New.net CEO

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Bruce and all assembly members,

  I believe that Dave Hernand answered the questions rather well in
this interview....  Well done Dave!  >;)

Bruce James wrote:

> Subject: Five Questions with David Hernand, New.net CEO
>
>  http://www.business2.com/technology/2001/06/dhernand.htm
>
> Five Questions with David Hernand
>
> New.net CEO weighs in on the tussle between his company and ICANN over who
> controls the expansion of the Internet.
>
> Jim Welte 06/29/2001
>
> Since early 2001, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names
> (ICANN) has had a major thorn in its side. That thorn, domain name registry
> New.net, has circumvented ICANN's process for naming new domain suffixes to
> expand the Internet beyond the .com, .net and .org domains that have been
> used to date. New.net has gone directly to Internet service providers (ISPs)
> and made deals to allow users to access new domains that New.net sells, and
> has drawn a heap of controversy its way by doing so. Business 2.0 Online
> visits with New.net CEO David Hernand to get his take on the debate
> surrounding the expansion of Internet domains.
>
> In your estimation, why is ICANN inherently incapable of meeting the market'
> s demand for new top-level domain names?
>
> Because of the nature of the ICANN beast, in that it is a consensus-building
> organization that was set up to be a technical standards-setting body to
> make technical decisions, but what it is now trying to do is act as a
> super-government and make political, economic and socio-economic decisions.
> For example, when it last considered introducing new names, several
> applicants were applying for a .kids domain name. And ICANN decided that it
> was controversial to adopt the .kids domain because of the free speech
> considerations and the limitations in ensuring that those sites contain
> kid-friendly content. That is not a technical decision. That is purely a
> political decision. So you have this body that is trying to be
> representative to everyone, but the people that are most vocal don't
> represent everyone but only a well-funded constituency that is not in favor
> of expansion of the name space. And you have a body that is not responsive
> to the market.
>
> Your business model is seemingly predicated on the idea that ICANN doesn't
> have its act together and hasn't met the demand that's out there. What
> happens if they do get their act together? What happens if they smooth out
> the process and allow more TLDs to be rolled out this year?
>
> No one thinks it will happen this year. Even ICANN says it will not happen
> this year. Our objective from the beginning was to go out and populate
> domain names and get them widely accepted and used. And we will create a
> large enough body of users so that ICANN, if it chose to release a
> conflicting name, would be the interloper and they would be choosing to
> create confusion in the market from what's already been used.
>
> Also, we continue to try and pork within the ICANN process. We show up to
> the ICANN meetings and we're very involved in the discussion and we welcome
> opportunities to be involved in the process and to have our names recognized
> and become the official registry for those names. We're just not going to
> wait for the political process to work, we're going to demonstrate the need.
>
> There are some similarities between what we're trying to do and what
> Goto.com did. They tried to use a market-based approach for search engines,
> and at the time it was very controversial. There was a lot of bad press
> about how anyone could do something so crass as to have a market-based
> approach for search, which is supposed to be holistically pure, and people
> didn't realize that search engines were being paid off for years. And now it
> 's a known fact and Goto has done very well and everyone is using a
> pay-for-performance model. Similarly, we are taking a market-based approach
> and we get some negative press because of it.
>
> So if ICANN does start rolling out domains that you have been selling, it
> will essentially come down to a public relations duel to convince the market
> that the other is interloping and creating confusion in the marketplace?
>
> I think the battle will take place in a slightly different way. We will be
> in there applying to be a registry for our names because we've demonstrated
> our ability to run a registry. We've got thousands of users with live
> websites and if ICANN chooses to do something else and create confusion, I
> don't think it will be New.net that will need to be the party out there
> crying foul. It will be Internet users who are making use of these names, so
> the PR battle won't need to be waged by us. It will be between ICANN and the
> hundreds of thousands out there that feel like their names are being taken
> away, which is far more powerful than simply one company in Pasadena.
>
> What has your involvement in the ICANN process been to date? Have you
> established a relationship with Vint Cerf and other board members? How about
> Karl Auerbach, widely regarded as the contrarian of the bunch?
>
> Going to an ICANN meeting is like going to a UN meeting, only slightly more
> dysfunctional. We go to all of the different constituency meetings at ICANN,
> and we went to the last one to answer questions and participate in the
> discussion. As far as the ICANN board, we don't have a close relationship
> with Vint Cerf or anything, we have spoken to many of the board members, and
> some board members support what we're doing, and others are quite critical
> of what we're doing. Vint Cerf has never been very vocal in the press about
> opposing us. He has described us as a clever trick, and he probably shares
> some of the concern that others do about the potential for conflict in the
> future. I'm sure he would like us to wait and work within the ICANN process,
> but surprisingly, he has been much more receptive to us when we've been at
> the podium making comments to the board. He has never treated us in a way
> that shows any kind of disrespect. We've been very impressed with his
> even-handedness. The more negative comments come from other boards members
> and the new CEO of ICANN, who has recognized that we are a threat to them,
> and so he has stepped up the rhetoric.
>
> Karl is the one person on the board that was elected through a democratic
> process, so you might say that he represents the little guy, and yes, he
> tends to be quite a contrarian and a dissident. He does support what we're
> doing, although he doesn't officially come out and say that. Karl is an
> active proponent of increasing the number of top-level domains and believes
> that this whole issue of conflicts is really overblown, that there are
> technology solutions to use in dealing with conflicts.
>
> There are several ways this struggle could play out in the next year to two
> years. In your ideal scenario, how does this play out, with ICANN and
> New.net acting in a somewhat harmonious way or at odds with each other?
>
> If ICANN returns to its roots as a technical standards-setting body and
> focuses on that role, then there will be a future where New.net exists with
> its top-level domains as a registry selling names, many of them recognized
> on the A root server and have worldwide appeal, but some won't. And there
> will be other companies doing the same thing. If ICANN continues its current
> path of trying to play the uber-government of the Internet and makes social
> policy decisions, I think ICANN will lose that battle, be overtaken by
> market forces, and become completely marginalized and perhaps implode.
>
> Jim Welte is a reporter for Business2.0 Online.
>
> /Bruce
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


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